As one of the top remote staffing agencies serving Australian businesses, we’ve come to understand that although remote work is a popular subject nowadays, there are still many misconceptions being thrown around. These misconceptions are dangerous because they can influence a manager’s perception of their remote staff’s performance.
One common misconception is that working from a home is the only incentive remote staff needs. In reality, just because a company hires people that will work from the comfort of their own home doesn’t mean that those employees don’t need to be engaged or motivated. People that worked remotely before aren’t all that excited about working from home when they start a new job (because they’ve done it before), and the newbies get past the initial excitement in a couple of months.
As humans, we all tend to get used to what we’re feeling in just a few months. What made us extremely happy 6 months ago, now can be considered to be normal. What broke our hearts 5 months ago is now also considered to be normal. We adapt to both sorrow and happiness. That is why it’s important to keep motivating your remote employees, even if what you’re offering are small gestures of appreciation.
If a remote employee seems to be less engaged than they used to be, maybe it’s because they’re not getting any type of motivation and not because they’re getting lazy or they’re procrastinating all the time.
Another misconception is that remote assistants need to be constantly guided in their work. During the first months, you’re supposed to guide your remote employees, but that’s not what should happen all the time. You need to offer your remote assistants all the tools and info they’ll need to do their job without asking you what they should do every step of the way. The point of delegating work is to stop doing that work and waste your time dealing with those issues. If you’re spending money to have remote employees to deal with those tasks, you shouldn’t act as if you’ve never hired them. If they aren’t capable of handling those tasks without your help, maybe you need to look for some new remote employees.
